Sunday, September 28, 2008

Went up tonight for an hour in the 150 for a little solo practice. Other than when Dave soloed me in it, I had not been up alone. I wanted to spend some time working on the basics before I venture off tomorrow on my first solo cross-country.

Sunset while on the downwind leg of the traffic pattern at Stewart

I made four takeoffs and landings and flew North of the field and over the lake to practice turns around a point and steep turns. The takeoffs all felt good and the landings were decent, other than getting a little low on one. I made my last approach a practice engine-out, but ended up way high and dumped all 40 degrees of flaps to land about 300 feet past the threshold. After getting stabilized, my turns around a point felt coordinated and within test standards. Steep turns still need some more work and I think Dave and I will work on those during our next lesson together. My main concern right now is talking with Dave to make sure I know all the exact speeds I want to be aiming for in my maneuvers in the Cessna. Once I have those firmly in my head, I think everything will come into place.